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Tuesday, January 31, 2012

When kumquats are in season, may you be blessed either with a tree that produces the little orange orbs or a generous neighbor with one. This chutney is sweet and spicy with just the right amount of vinegar bite to make it spoonable over everything, from chicken to pork chops to fish.

When I was growing up in Texas, kumquats and their
non-related look-a-likes, loquats or Japanese plums, were common in
backyards. We weren’t fortunate to have
our own but neighbors and relatives were more than happy to share. Over the years, I have bought them when
available but never have I seen them as plentiful or as inexpensive as here in
Egypt. It must be the season because I
bought a bag of more than two pounds or one kilo for about 50 cents in American
money. And, boy, was I delighted because
I had just the recipe I wanted to adapt for them from, once again, my new favorite cookbook Fried Chicken and Champagne.

Pile them in a bowl and cover them with the orange
juice. Push them down into the juice a
little if necessary. Cover the bowl with
cling film and let marinate overnight in the refrigerator.

The next day, peel your ginger and grate it finely into
something that saves the pulp and the juice, because you’ll want to use both in
the next step.

About as long as my thumb, but thicker.

In a large saucepan off of the stove, add in the kumquats,
rice vinegar, red pepper, cinnamon stick, ginger and sugar. Stir until the sugar is dissolved and pick out any large green seeds
you might have missed.

Sugar dissolved!

Bring the mixture to a boil and then turn the fire
down. Cook until it thickens to your
desired consistency. The original recipe
had some interesting instructions about bringing it to the boil and turning it
down three times, so I did this, only to realize that I wanted the sauce to be
more like a chutney. Boiling only three times
left it very runny. I abandoned all
that up-flame-down-flame and just gave it a steady very low boil, stirring
every few minutes, until it was pretty thick.
Remember that once it cools, it will thicken even more so stop before
you can stand a spoon in it or it will be too thick cold.

Be careful at the beginning because the sugar really makes it bubble up. You do not want this to boil over!

Meanwhile, mince your fresh chili, discarding the seeds if
you don’t like things too spicy. My
pepper wasn’t very hot so I serious considered adding two. Then I remembered the crushed red pepper and
thought better of it. But you can judge
for yourself.

Once the chutney is almost thick enough, add in the minced pepper. Stir and cook just a few minutes longer. You want the pepper to retain its color. Turn off the fire and remove the cinnamon stick. It’s done.

While it cools, take your helper out to play with the handful of leftover kumquats.

This was divine with bacon-wrapped, pan-fried chicken
breasts, as well as pork chops. (YES, I FOUND PORK CHOPS IN CAIRO! And they
were, despite reports to the contrary, cheaper than steak.) I
don’t have any clean empty jars or I would have bottled the chutney boiling
hot, like I did with the pepper
sauce here. It’s in Ziplocs in my
fridge, if anyone wants some.

With bacon-wrapped chicken breasts. Oh, man!

Pan-fried pork chops!

If you are a lover of sweet and sour and especially if you
are also a lover of orange marmalade, this is the chutney for you.

Friday, January 27, 2012

My maternal maternal great-grandfather, by which I mean my
mother’s mother’s father, was a life-long employee of the railroads, the mayor
of his small town of Abbeville, LA for a couple of years, the brewer of his own
beer and a good cook. His name was
Thomas Fleming and we called him Papa Tom.

I don’t remember him really, although I have seen
photographs and heard the stories so many times, that I feel I must. But one thing stands out in my mind about
him, who knows why these things stick and even if they are accurate, but he
used to make spaghetti sauce with chicken and start with a roux. The family called it chicken spaghetti. Why not tomato sauce with chicken that we
happen to serve over noodles? Well, probably
because that’s just too long.

Anyhoo. That’s what I
made for dinner tonight. Possibly it’s
not anything like Papa Tom’s but it was made with him, and my grandmother and
my mother, fondly in mind.

Ingredients

1 whole chicken

2 medium onions

7-8 garlic cloves

4 sprigs of rosemary or 3 bay leaves

1 tablespoon of oregano

1 teaspoon of sugar

Olive oil

2 tablespoons butter

Canola oil

1/4 cup or 30g all-purpose
flour

Sea salt

Black pepper

1 can (14 oz) or 390g whole peeled tomatoes with juice

3 oz or 85 grams tomato paste

Method

Cut your chicken into the usual pieces: Breasts, wings, legs, thighs. I also cut the breasts into two pieces. You may choose to do the same. Season liberally with sea salt and freshly
ground black pepper. Set aside.

Chop your onions and garlic into small pieces. Pull the rosemary leaves off the stalk and
mince. If you are using bay leaves,
leave them whole.

Drizzle a good amount of olive oil in your pot and add in
the two tablespoons of butter. When it
starts to sizzle, add the chicken, a few pieces at a time. Brown on one side, then the other. This could take as much as 10 minutes a side.

As the chicken pieces brown, remove them from the pot and
set them aside on a plate. When all the
chicken is browned and on the side plate, turn off the pot. Scrape off the lovely brown bits and heap
them on the chicken plate.

Pour the oil from the pan into a heat resistance bowl and
allow it to settle. Wash the pot out
thoroughly.

Pour the reserved oil from the bowl into a measuring cup,
leaving behind the sediment. Fill the
measuring cup up to the 1/4 cup mark with new Canola oil. Pour it into your clean pot and add an equal
amount (1/4 cup) of flour.

Cook over a medium heat , stirring constantly, until the
roux turns a medium dark brown. Do not
let it burn.

Add it the onion, garlic and rosemary or bay leaves. Give the pot a good stir.

Add in the can of whole peeled tomatoes and the tomato
paste. Add in one can’s worth of water.

Put the chicken back in the pot and add enough water to
cover. This took one more can full.

Add a good sprinkle of salt, a good couple of grinds of
fresh black pepper and the tablespoon of oregano. Mix in the teaspoon
of sugar and stir.

Bring to the boil and then simmer until the chicken is
tender and trying to fall of the bone.
Serve over freshly cooked spaghetti noodles. This is the richest tomato sauce you'll ever taste.

This cooked down and thickened for about two hours. Just because we
had nothing better to do. It was probably cooked and technically ready to
eat in less than 45 minutes, albeit not as thick.

Enjoy!

A P.S. to family members who would like to correct my poor childhood memory, please do! I will add updates or retractions to this post, as need be.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Today I went off shopping in search of heat. The heater in our house stopped working
again, when the new repairmen came by.
“It needs parts,” they said. “We need to speak to the landlady,” they
said. What they neglected to say was,
“We also disconnected the actual working parts.
You will be cold until we can come back.
Perhaps next week.” Well, we
discovered that soon enough so, today, with authorization from the landlady, I
went to look for small space heaters that would warm us until the repairmen
come back. Next week. God willing. But since Cairo is experiencing an unusually
cold winter, there were no space heaters to be found. Or firewood, which was plan B. I did, however, find quail! Which kept me warm this afternoon and part of
the evening because I roasted the little babies in the oven.

Clean your quail by cutting off all visible fat and removing
any residual feathers. Cut them up into
pieces just as you would do a chicken.
Two breasts, two legs, two thighs and two wings. I left the backbone attached to whichever
pieces seemed most handy because I was not about to throw any of these small
birds away.

This is for scale. The legs compared to my teaspoon.

Cut your sausage into 16 pieces. Cut your bacon slices into
four pieces each. Yeah, that is 16
pieces too. Just wanted to see if you
were paying attention.

Crush the garlic with the side of a knife.

Pull the leaves off of the rosemary and mince.

Pop your sausage, quail and bacon into a large bowl. Add in the garlic and rosemary and season
well with salt and pepper. Mix
thoroughly.

Drizzle generously with olive oil and mix again. Leave to marinate for about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 375°F or 190°C.

Skewer the quail (skin
side up for all the pieces) and sausage and garlic and bacon. One satay stick holds half a quail (one
breast, one thigh, one leg and one wing) and two pieces of sausage and two
pieces of bacon. I spread the garlic
around as justly as I could.

Roast in your hot oven (skin side up at first) for 20-30
minutes, turning once half way through.

Near the end of cooking, take the tray out and turn the skin
side back up. Drizzle with a little
runny honey and the vinegar. (I did take one photo of me drizzling on the honey, but unfortunately it was really blurry. Sorry.) Return to
the oven for a few more minutes. Remove
from the oven when sticky and caramelized.

Cooking for people I love, creating deliciousness out of fresh ingredients, browsing through cookbooks for inspiration, perusing grocery shelves for choice items and writing about my expat life enriched by food. That's what I do here.